<SPAN name="VII" id="VII"></SPAN><h2>VII</h2>
<h2>THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN</h2></div>
<p><!-- Page 168 --><span class="pagenum">
<SPAN name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</SPAN></span>
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<SPAN name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</SPAN></span>
<br/></p>
<p class="cap">THE Willow-Wren was twittering his thin
little song, hidden himself in the dark
selvedge of the river bank. Though it was past
ten o'clock at night, the sky still clung to and
retained some lingering skirts of light from the
departed day; and the sullen heats of the torrid
afternoon broke up and rolled away at the dispersing
touch of the cool fingers of the short
midsummer night. Mole lay stretched on the
bank, still panting from the stress of the fierce
day that had been cloudless from dawn to late
sunset, and waited for his friend to return.
He had been on the river with some companions,
leaving the Water Rat free to keep an engagement
of long standing with Otter; and he had
come back to find the house dark and deserted,
and no sign of Rat, who was doubtless keeping
<!-- Page 170 --><span class="pagenum">
<SPAN name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</SPAN></span>
it up late with his old comrade. It was still
too hot to think of staying indoors, so he lay
on some cool dock-leaves, and thought over the
past day and its doings, and how very good
they all had been.</p>
<p>The Rat's light footfall was presently heard
approaching over the parched grass. "O, the
blessed coolness!" he said, and sat down, gazing
thoughtfully into the river, silent and pre-occupied.</p>
<p>"You stayed to supper, of course?" said the
Mole presently.</p>
<p>"Simply had to," said the Rat. "They
wouldn't hear of my going before. You know
how kind they always are. And they made
things as jolly for me as ever they could, right
up to the moment I left. But I felt a brute all
the time, as it was clear to me they were very
unhappy, though they tried to hide it. Mole,
I'm afraid they're in trouble. Little Portly is
missing again; and you know what a lot his
father thinks of him, though he never says
much about it."</p>
<p>"What, that child?" said the Mole lightly.
<!-- Page 171 --><span class="pagenum">
<SPAN name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</SPAN></span>
"Well, suppose he is; why worry about it?
He's always straying off and getting lost, and
turning up again; he's so adventurous. But
no harm ever happens to him. Everybody hereabouts
knows him and likes him, just as they
do old Otter, and you may be sure some animal
or other will come across him and bring him
back again all right. Why, we've found him
ourselves, miles from home, and quite self-possessed
and cheerful!"</p>
<p>"Yes; but this time it's more serious," said
the Rat gravely. "He's been missing for some
days now, and the Otters have hunted everywhere,
high and low, without finding the slightest
trace. And they've asked every animal,
too, for miles around, and no one knows anything
about him. Otter's evidently more anxious
than he'll admit. I got out of him that
young Portly hasn't learnt to swim very well
yet, and I can see he's thinking of the weir.
There's a lot of water coming down still, considering
the time of the year, and the place
always had a fascination for the child. And
then there are—well, traps and things—<i>you</i>
<!-- Page 172 --><span class="pagenum">
<SPAN name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</SPAN></span>
know. Otter's not the fellow to be nervous
about any son of his before it's time. And now
he <i>is</i> nervous. When I left, he came out with
me—said he wanted some air, and talked about
stretching his legs. But I could see it wasn't
that, so I drew him out and pumped him, and
got it all from him at last. He was going to
spend the night watching by the ford. You
know the place where the old ford used to be,
in by-gone days before they built the bridge?"</p>
<p>"I know it well," said the Mole. "But why
should Otter choose to watch there?"</p>
<p>"Well, it seems that it was there he gave
Portly his first swimming-lesson," continued the
Rat. "From that shallow, gravelly spit near the
bank. And it was there he used to teach him
fishing, and there young Portly caught his first
fish, of which he was so very proud. The child
loved the spot, and Otter thinks that if he came
wandering back from wherever he is—if he <i>is</i>
anywhere by this time, poor little chap—he
might make for the ford he was so fond of; or
if he came across it he'd remember it well, and
stop there and play, perhaps. So Otter goes
<!-- Page 173 --><span class="pagenum">
<SPAN name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</SPAN></span>
there every night and watches—on the chance,
you know, just on the chance!"</p>
<p>They were silent for a time, both thinking
of the same thing—the lonely, heart-sore animal,
crouched by the ford, watching and waiting, the
long night through—on the chance.</p>
<p>"Well, well," said the Rat presently, "I suppose
we ought to be thinking about turning in."
But he never offered to move.</p>
<p>"Rat," said the Mole, "I simply can't go and
turn in, and go to sleep, and <i>do</i> nothing, even
though there doesn't seem to be anything to be
done. We'll get the boat out, and paddle upstream.
The moon will be up in an hour or so,
and then we will search as well as we can—anyhow,
it will be better than going to bed and
doing <i>nothing</i>."</p>
<p>"Just what I was thinking myself," said the
Rat. "It's not the sort of night for bed anyhow;
and daybreak is not so very far off, and
then we may pick up some news of him from
early risers as we go along."</p>
<p>They got the boat out, and the Rat took the
<!-- Page 174 --><span class="pagenum">
<SPAN name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</SPAN></span>
sculls, paddling with caution. Out in mid-stream,
there was a clear, narrow track that
faintly reflected the sky; but wherever shadows
fell on the water from bank, bush, or tree, they
were as solid to all appearance as the banks
themselves, and the Mole had to steer with
judgment accordingly. Dark and deserted as
it was, the night was full of small noises, song
and chatter and rustling, telling of the busy
little population who were up and about, plying
their trades and vocations through the night till
sunshine should fall on them at last and send
them off to their well-earned repose. The
water's own noises, too, were more apparent
than by day, its gurglings and "cloops" more
unexpected and near at hand; and constantly
they started at what seemed a sudden clear call
from an actual articulate voice.</p>
<p>The line of the horizon was clear and hard
against the sky, and in one particular quarter it
showed black against a silvery climbing phosphorescence
that grew and grew. At last, over
the rim of the waiting earth the moon lifted
with slow majesty till it swung clear of the
horizon and rode off, free of moorings; and
<!-- Page 175 --><span class="pagenum">
<SPAN name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</SPAN></span>
once more they began to see surfaces—meadows
wide-spread, and quiet gardens, and the
river itself from bank to bank, all softly disclosed,
all washed clean of mystery and terror, all radiant
again as by day, but with a difference
that was tremendous. Their old haunts greeted
them again in other raiment, as if they had
slipped away and put on this pure new apparel
and come quietly back, smiling as they shyly
waited to see if they would be recognised again
under it.</p>
<p>Fastening their boat to a willow, the friends
landed in this silent, silver kingdom, and patiently
explored the hedges, the hollow trees,
the runnels and their little culverts, the ditches
and dry water-ways. Embarking again and
crossing over, they worked their way up the
stream in this manner, while the moon, serene
and detached in a cloudless sky, did what she
could, though so far off, to help them in their
quest; till her hour came and she sank earthwards
reluctantly, and left them, and mystery
once more held field and river.</p>
<p>Then a change began slowly to declare itself.
<!-- Page 176 --><span class="pagenum">
<SPAN name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</SPAN></span>
The horizon became clearer, field and tree came
more into sight, and somehow with a different
look; the mystery began to drop away from
them. A bird piped suddenly, and was still;
and a light breeze sprang up and set the reeds
and bulrushes rustling. Rat, who was in the
stern of the boat, while Mole sculled, sat up
suddenly and listened with a passionate intentness.
Mole, who with gentle strokes was just
keeping the boat moving while he scanned
the banks with care, looked at him with curiosity.</p>
<p>"It's gone!" sighed the Rat, sinking back in
his seat again. "So beautiful and strange and
new! Since it was to end so soon, I almost
wish I had never heard it. For it has roused a
longing in me that is pain, and nothing seems
worth while but just to hear that sound once
more and go on listening to it for ever. No!
There it is again!" he cried, alert once more.
Entranced, he was silent for a long space, spellbound.</p>
<p>"Now it passes on and I begin to lose it," he
said presently. "O Mole! the beauty of it!
<!-- Page 177 --><span class="pagenum">
<SPAN name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</SPAN></span>
The merry bubble and joy, the thin, clear, happy
call of the distant piping! Such music I never
dreamed of, and the call in it is stronger even
than the music is sweet! Row on, Mole, row!
For the music and the call must be for us."</p>
<p>The Mole, greatly wondering, obeyed. "I
hear nothing myself," he said, "but the wind
playing in the reeds and rushes and osiers."</p>
<p>The Rat never answered, if indeed he heard.
Rapt, transported, trembling, he was possessed
in all his senses by this new divine thing that
caught up his helpless soul and swung and
dandled it, a powerless but happy infant in a
strong sustaining grasp.</p>
<p>In silence Mole rowed steadily, and soon they
came to a point where the river divided, a long
backwater branching off to one side. With a
slight movement of his head Rat, who had long
dropped the rudder-lines, directed the rower to
take the backwater. The creeping tide of light
gained and gained, and now they could see the
colour of the flowers that gemmed the water's
edge.</p>
<p><!-- Page 178 --><span class="pagenum">
<SPAN name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>"Clearer and nearer still," cried the Rat joyously.
"Now you must surely hear it! Ah—at
last—I see you do!"</p>
<p>Breathless and transfixed, the Mole stopped
rowing as the liquid run of that glad piping
broke on him like a wave, caught him up, and
possessed him utterly. He saw the tears on his
comrade's cheeks, and bowed his head and
understood. For a space they hung there,
brushed by the purple loosestrife that fringed
the bank; then the clear imperious summons
that marched hand-in-hand with the intoxicating
melody imposed its will on Mole, and mechanically
he bent to his oars again. And the light
grew steadily stronger, but no birds sang as they
were wont to do at the approach of dawn; and
but for the heavenly music all was marvellously
still.</p>
<p>On either side of them, as they glided onwards,
the rich meadow-grass seemed that morning
of a freshness and a greenness unsurpassable.
Never had they noticed the roses so vivid, the
willow-herb so riotous, the meadow-sweet so
odorous and pervading. Then the murmur of
the approaching weir began to hold the air, and
<!-- Page 179 --><span class="pagenum">
<SPAN name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</SPAN></span>
they felt a consciousness that they were nearing
the end, whatever it might be, that surely
awaited their expedition.</p>
<p>A wide half-circle of foam and glinting lights
and shining shoulders of green water, the great
weir closed the backwater from bank to bank,
troubled all the quiet surface with twirling
eddies and floating foam-streaks, and deadened
all other sounds with its solemn and soothing
rumble. In midmost of the stream, embraced
in the weir's shimmering arm-spread, a small
island lay anchored, fringed close with willow
and silver birch and alder. Reserved, shy, but
full of significance, it hid whatever it might
hold behind a veil, keeping it till the hour
should come, and, with the hour, those who
were called and chosen.</p>
<p>Slowly, but with no doubt or hesitation whatever,
and in something of a solemn expectancy,
the two animals passed through the broken,
tumultuous water and moored their boat at the
flowery margin of the island. In silence they
landed, and pushed through the blossom and
scented herbage and undergrowth that led up
<!-- Page 180 --><span class="pagenum">
<SPAN name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</SPAN></span>
to the level ground, till they stood on a little
lawn of a marvellous green, set round with
Nature's own orchard-trees—crab-apple, wild
cherry, and sloe.</p>
<p>"This is the place of my song-dream, the
place the music played to me," whispered the
Rat, as if in a trance. "Here, in this holy place,
here if anywhere, surely we shall find Him!"</p>
<p>Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall
upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to
water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to
the ground. It was no panic terror—indeed he
felt wonderfully at peace and happy—but it
was an awe that smote and held him and, without
seeing, he knew it could only mean that
some august Presence was very, very near.
With difficulty he turned to look for his friend,
and saw him at his side, cowed, stricken, and
trembling violently. And still there was utter
silence in the populous bird-haunted branches
around them; and still the light grew and grew.</p>
<p>Perhaps he would never have dared to raise
his eyes, but that, though the piping was now
hushed, the call and the summons seemed still
<!-- Page 181 --><span class="pagenum">
<SPAN name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</SPAN></span>
dominant and imperious. He might not refuse,
were Death himself waiting to strike him instantly,
once he had looked with mortal eye
on things rightly kept hidden. Trembling he
obeyed, and raised his humble head; and then,
in that utter clearness of the imminent dawn,
while Nature, flushed with fulness of incredible
colour, seemed to hold her breath for the event,
he looked in the very eyes of the Friend and
Helper; saw the backward sweep of the curved
horns, gleaming in the growing daylight; saw
the stern, hooked nose between the kindly eyes
that were looking down on them humorously,
while the bearded mouth broke into a half-smile
at the corners; saw the rippling muscles
on the arm that lay across the broad chest, the
long supple hand still holding the pan-pipes
only just fallen away from the parted lips; saw
the splendid curves of the shaggy limbs disposed
in majestic ease on the sward; saw, last
of all, nestling between his very hooves, sleeping
soundly in entire peace and contentment,
the little, round, podgy, childish form of the
baby otter. All this he saw, for one moment
<!-- Page 182 --><span class="pagenum">
<SPAN name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</SPAN></span>
breathless and intense, vivid on the morning
sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still,
as he lived, he wondered.</p>
<p>"Rat!" he found breath to whisper, shaking.
"Are you afraid?"</p>
<p>"Afraid?" murmured the Rat, his eyes shining
with unutterable love. "Afraid! Of <i>Him</i>? O,
never, never! And yet—and yet—O, Mole,
I am afraid!"</p>
<p>Then the two animals, crouching to the earth,
bowed their heads and did worship.</p>
<p>Sudden and magnificent, the sun's broad
golden disc showed itself over the horizon facing
them; and the first rays, shooting across the
level water-meadows, took the animals full in
the eyes and dazzled them. When they were
able to look once more, the Vision had vanished,
and the air was full of the carol of birds that
hailed the dawn.</p>
<p>As they stared blankly, in dumb misery deepening
as they slowly realised all they had seen
and all they had lost, a capricious little breeze,
dancing up from the surface of the water, tossed
the aspens, shook the dewy roses, and blew
<!-- Page 183 --><span class="pagenum">
<SPAN name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</SPAN></span>
lightly and caressingly in their faces; and with
its soft touch came instant oblivion. For this
is the last best gift that the kindly demi-god
is careful to bestow on those to whom he has
revealed himself in their helping: the gift of
forgetfulness. Lest the awful remembrance
should remain and grow, and overshadow mirth
and pleasure, and the great haunting memory
should spoil all the after-lives of little animals
helped out of difficulties, in order that they
should be happy and light-hearted as before.</p>
<p>Mole rubbed his eyes and stared at Rat, who
was looking about him in a puzzled sort of
way. "I beg your pardon; what did you say,
Rat?" he asked.</p>
<p>"I think I was only remarking," said Rat
slowly, "that this was the right sort of place,
and that here, if anywhere, we should find him.
And look! Why, there he is, the little fellow!"
And with a cry of delight he ran towards the
slumbering Portly.</p>
<p>But Mole stood still a moment, held in
thought. As one wakened suddenly from a
beautiful dream, who struggles to recall it, and
<!-- Page 184 --><span class="pagenum">
<SPAN name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</SPAN></span>
can recapture nothing but a dim sense of the
beauty of it, the beauty! Till that, too, fades
away in its turn, and the dreamer bitterly
accepts the hard, cold waking and all its penalties;
so Mole, after struggling with his memory
for a brief space, shook his head sadly and
followed the Rat.</p>
<p>Portly woke up with a joyous squeak, and
wriggled with pleasure at the sight of his father's
friends, who had played with him so often in
past days. In a moment, however, his face
grew blank, and he fell to hunting round in a
circle with pleading whine. As a child that has
fallen happily asleep in its nurse's arms, and
wakes to find itself alone and laid in a strange
place, and searches corners and cupboards, and
runs from room to room, despair growing
silently in its heart, even so Portly searched the
island and searched, dogged and unwearying,
till at last the black moment came for giving it
up, and sitting down and crying bitterly.</p>
<p>The Mole ran quickly to comfort the little animal;
but Rat, lingering, looked long and doubtfully
at certain hoof-marks deep in the sward.
<!-- Page 185 --><span class="pagenum">
<SPAN name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>"Some—great—animal—has been here,"
he murmured slowly and thoughtfully; and
stood musing, musing; his mind strangely
stirred.</p>
<p>"Come along, Rat!" called the Mole. "Think
of poor Otter, waiting up there by the ford!"</p>
<p>Portly had soon been comforted by the promise
of a treat—a jaunt on the river in Mr.
Rat's real boat; and the two animals conducted
him to the water's side, placed him securely
between them in the bottom of the boat, and
paddled off down the backwater. The sun was
fully up by now, and hot on them, birds sang
lustily and without restraint, and flowers smiled
and nodded from either bank, but somehow—so
thought the animals—with less of richness
and blaze of colour than they seemed to remember
seeing quite recently somewhere—they wondered
where.</p>
<p>The main river reached again, they turned
the boat's head upstream, towards the point
where they knew their friend was keeping his
lonely vigil. As they drew near the familiar
ford, the Mole took the boat in to the bank, and
<!-- Page 186 --><span class="pagenum">
<SPAN name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</SPAN></span>
they lifted Portly out and set him on his legs
on the tow-path, gave him his marching orders
and a friendly farewell pat on the back, and
shoved out into mid-stream. They watched the
little animal as he waddled along the path contentedly
and with importance; watched him
till they saw his muzzle suddenly lift and his
waddle break into a clumsy amble as he quickened
his pace with shrill whines and wriggles of
recognition. Looking up the river, they could
see Otter start up, tense and rigid, from out of
the shallows where he crouched in dumb patience,
and could hear his amazed and joyous
bark as he bounded up through the osiers on to
the path. Then the Mole, with a strong pull
on one oar, swung the boat round and let the
full stream bear them down again whither it
would, their quest now happily ended.</p>
<p>"I feel strangely tired, Rat," said the Mole,
leaning wearily over his oars, as the boat drifted.
"It's being up all night, you'll say, perhaps;
but that's nothing. We do as much half the
nights of the week, at this time of the year.
No; I feel as if I had been through something
<!-- Page 187 --><span class="pagenum">
<SPAN name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</SPAN></span>
very exciting and rather terrible, and it was just
over; and yet nothing particular has happened."</p>
<p>"Or something very surprising and splendid
and beautiful," murmured the Rat, leaning back
and closing his eyes. "I feel just as you do,
Mole; simply dead tired, though not body-tired.
It's lucky we've got the stream with us,
to take us home. Isn't it jolly to feel the sun
again, soaking into one's bones! And hark to
the wind playing in the reeds!"</p>
<p>"It's like music—far-away music," said the
Mole, nodding drowsily.</p>
<p>"So I was thinking," murmured the Rat,
dreamful and languid. "Dance-music—the
lilting sort that runs on without a stop—but
with words in it, too—it passes into words and
out of them again—I catch them at intervals—then
it is dance-music once more, and then
nothing but the reeds' soft thin whispering."</p>
<p>"You hear better than I," said the Mole
sadly. "I cannot catch the words."</p>
<p>"Let me try and give you them," said the
Rat softly, his eyes still closed. "Now it is
<!-- Page 188 --><span class="pagenum">
<SPAN name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</SPAN></span>
turning into words again—faint but clear—<i>Lest
the awe should dwell—And turn your frolic
to fret—You shall look on my power at the helping
hour—But then you shall forget!</i> Now the
reeds take it up—<i>forget, forget</i>, they sigh, and it
dies away in a rustle and a whisper. Then the
voice returns—</p>
<p>"<i>Lest limbs be reddened and rent—I spring
the trap that is set—As I loose the snare you may
glimpse me there—For surely you shall forget!</i>
Row nearer, Mole, nearer to the reeds! It is
hard to catch, and grows each minute fainter.</p>
<p>"<i>Helper and healer, I cheer—Small waifs in
the woodland wet—Strays I find in it, wounds I
bind in it—Bidding them all forget!</i> Nearer,
Mole, nearer! No, it is no good; the song has
died away into reed-talk."</p>
<p>"But what do the words mean?" asked the
wondering Mole.</p>
<p>"That I do not know," said the Rat simply.
"I passed them on to you as they reached me.
Ah! now they return again, and this time full
and clear! This time, at last, it is the real, the
unmistakable thing, simple—passionate—perfect—"
<!-- Page 189 --><span class="pagenum">
<SPAN name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>"Well, let's have it, then," said the Mole,
after he had waited patiently for a few minutes,
half-dozing in the hot sun.</p>
<p>But no answer came. He looked, and understood
the silence. With a smile of much happiness
on his face, and something of a listening
look still lingering there, the weary Rat was
fast asleep.
<!-- Page 190 --><span class="pagenum">
<SPAN name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</SPAN></span>
<!-- Page 191 --><span class="pagenum">
<SPAN name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</SPAN></span></p>
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